


Memories and Murder

by DapperMuffin, DearTheodosia (DapperMuffin)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Family Feels, Gen, Guns, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reincarnation, cause its mentioned, in passing, the character death is purely the canonical stuff i promise, unintentional musical references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27395881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DapperMuffin/pseuds/DapperMuffin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DapperMuffin/pseuds/DearTheodosia
Summary: Peter has only lived one life so far, this one—as far as he knows. At least, until the burglar holds a gun to his head.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25





	Memories and Murder

**Author's Note:**

> just so you all know,,, before we start,,, this has been in my drafts for a while,,, and up until now the only thing ive called it is Philip Vs. Gun AU so u can sort of see how i feel about it jfgdgfdgh and its current title sounds cool which is purely a stroke of luck and also a little bit of a stretch shhh
> 
> (the simplified language at the beginning is on purpose trust me, go with it)

"Keep the house safe while we're gone, okay?" Pa instructs Peter.

"Yeah!" Peter grins. "I'm big and strong!" Dad ruffles his hair, and he laughs.

"Sure you don't wanna come?" Frankie asks. "It's more fun when you're there."

"I don't wanna come," Peter says. "But we can play later?"

"Okay," Frankie says, still slightly reluctant. Pa scoops her up into his arms, and she shrieks. "Pa! You didn't warn me!"

"Sorry, sweetie," Pa says. "I forgot. Do you want me to put you down?"

"No. Carry me to the car," Frankie says, pointing to the door.

"As you wish." Pa carries Frankie out the door, and Peter can't see them anymore.

"We'll be back in about half an hour," Dad says. "Think you can hold down the fort while we're gone?"

"We'll be fine," Mom says.

"Okay. Bye!" Dad leaves, closing the door.

Mom puts a hand to her head. "I'm tired. I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up if you need anything, P."

"Okay!" Mom waves as she goes upstairs.

Peter looks around. What should he do now? He doesn't want to draw, or read. He could play outside, but it's cold.

He doesn't usually play the piano without Mom there, but he climbs onto the bench anyway. He scrunches up his face, trying to remember what Mom taught him yesterday. He slowly plunks a few notes, using a single (unfortunately short) finger as he warms up, then moving on to using both hands. He isn't as fast at this yet as he wants to be, so he keeps playing.

There's a _crash_ , and Peter whirls around. The front window, the big one he always loves to look out, is broken. Glass shards cover the floor by the wall, and the curtains flap in the wind.

A person climbs in through the broken window. Peter, as slowly and silently as he can, gets off the piano bench and backs toward the hallway. He's halfway there when he trips over his own feet. He falls. It's loud, and the burglar finally notices him.

Peter, disoriented by the fall, can't get up fast enough, and the burglar suddenly has a gun to his head. He can't move. There's a sharp stinging in his arm and side—has he been shot?—and he clutches at his side. There's no blood. What is happening to him?

"Where are the valuables, boy?" the burglar snarls. Peter can't answer. Can't move. He's only barely breathing. "Where are they?!" When Peter doesn't respond, the man pulls the trigger on his gun, and Peter feels the bullet go past. It lodges in the wall behind him.

He's terrified.

_Not again._

He can't die like this again—

He finds himself opening his mouth, and one single shout escapes. "MOM!"

The effect is almost immediate. Mom thunders down the stairs. In her hands is a heavy bat, the one Peter last saw under his parents' bed. Her eyes widen when she sees the gun to her son's head, but she doesn't waver.

"Get away from my son!"

"Or what?" The man brandishes his gun in her direction. "I'm the one with the gun here. What's a bat going to do to a bullet?"

"You don't want to see what I can do." Something's changed. Mom's voice is low, her body oddly still, and her eyes _burn._ "So I ask you again. Get away from my son."

The burglar is visibly bothered by this. He keeps the gun pointed at Mom, but his hand shakes, and as she slowly advances, he backs away, toward the window. She continues her slow approach, and the burglar backs up until he hits the wall. He turns fast, climbing out the window and leaving at a run.

The fire in Mom's eyes dies down to embers, and she lowers the bat as she rushes to her son.

"Peter? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

The pain is becoming unbearable now, and he can hardly breathe. He holds his side tighter and tighter, but there's still no blood.

"Mom," he chokes out. "I'm sorry it happened again."

"Again?" Mom asks, but then it clicks, and her eyes widen. They start to glisten. Her lips part. "Philip?" she whispers.

He smiles sadly. The last thing he sees before he passes out is his mother on her knees in front of him, looking utterly helpless.

* * *

  
  


Philip wakes to a constant beeping. His eyes slowly flutter open, and he looks around.

He's in a hospital, judging by the pale, ugly walls and the heart monitor hooked up to him. _So that's where the beeping is coming from_. He ignores the little voice in his head that's in a full-blown panic—what is a heart monitor? how does he know what it is? where is he? what's happening? _why can't he remember?_

There are two men, a woman, and a young girl sitting next to his bed, in a makeshift semicircle of foldable chairs. The woman's breath catches as she notices he's awake.

"Alexander." She lightly touches the arm of the man on her right, not taking her eyes off of Philip.

Alexander?

Philip looks at the man in question. He doesn't look anything like Philip's father, and yet...

"Alexander" lifts his bowed head, seeming as though he's about to cry at any moment. "Hey, P, how are you feeling?" His voice cracks, and he winces.

"It doesn't hurt." His voice is strange. He doesn't know this voice. This body isn't familiar, either. Younger, even. Who is he now?

"That's good." Alexander smiles weakly.

The girl, who'd been barely keeping herself still since she'd been alerted he was awake, finally lets herself move, and Philip finds himself wrapped in a hug by his sister. He knows instinctually this is his sister, but he doesn't recognize her—she's not Angelica, or Eliza Holly, he's certain about that.

Once his sister pulls away and moves to sit down in her chair again, he speaks. "Why am I in the hospital?" The most harmless question of the many swimming around in his head at the moment.

"Well, I scared off the burglar, and then you passed out," the woman says. She stares at her hands now. She's upset, this he can tell. "The doctors didn't find anything wrong with you, so hopefully they'll let you go home today."

"Home?"

The other man, the one with the curlier hair, frowns. "Yes. Home." Alexander and the woman look frightened. The girl looks confused.

"I... I don't remember," Philip says, feeling guilty as the woman starts tearing up. "I'm sorry. Who are you?"

"Philip," she says softly, and the heads of both Alexander and the other man snap around to look at her. "What _do_ you remember?"

"I remember being shot by that piece of"—he glances at the girl—" _dirt_ , Eacker."

Alexander opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He clears his throat and tries again. "Philip?"

"Yes?"

Philip is once again being hugged by someone he thinks he ought to know but can't remember. Alexander strokes his hair with one hand, the other hand keeping Philip pulled close against him. It feels nice.

Alexander pulls back, hands on Philip's shoulders. "You're a reincarnation," he says. Philip's eyebrows furrow.

"A what?"

Alexander sighs, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "It's like— when you die, you get born again, you live another life as someone else until you remember who you used to be."

Philip thinks about this. "Then... you must be Alexander Hamilton." He corrects himself. "Pa?"

"It's me, Philip." Alexander smiles, even while his eyes brim with tears. "I've missed you. And I'm sorry for giving you awful advice. I followed my own advice and it got me killed too."

"You died in a duel?" Philip asks. "Against whom?"

"Aaron Burr."

"But... he was your friend," Philip says. "Theo's dad. He wouldn't hurt you."

"I angered him. Pushed him to the brink," Alexander says. "I think he regretted it, but I'm not sure. Still, I saw his face before they sent me back across the river. He didn't seem very happy with what he'd done."

While Philip absorbs this new information, he examines the woman. She seems more and more familiar with every passing second. He knows her.

"Mom?"

Eliza nods, the tears now rolling freely down her face, having made an escape from her eyes. "I'm still mad at you for challenging that man to a duel, but I missed you, and I'm proud of you, Philip. You were so brave."

He smiles at her. She sniffs.

"Who is this?" He raises an eyebrow at the curly-haired man, who seems just as concerned as his parents do.

"You wouldn't know me, I died before you were born," the man says, "but I was John Laurens."

"Oh! Pa told me about you."

"He... he did?" John says, sounding strangled. He doesn't look at Alexander, even though it would take little effort to shift his head or his eyes a few feet to the right.

"He used to tell us stories," Philip reminisces. "He described you as this brave, loyal soldier who threw himself too readily into battle, and as a good friend."

"John?" Alexander asks, and John looks at him wonderingly. Alexander takes John's hand.

"You told your children stories about me?" John asks, as though he'd never even considered that might have been a possibility.

"Of course I did!" Alexander exclaims. "You and Eliza were two of the people most dear to me, and when you died, I worried I'd forget. So as soon as Philip was born, I started telling him about you. I did that for all of my kids. So they could keep your memory alive, once I'd forgotten. Once I was gone."

"Oh."

Philip lets them have their moment of silence, though now he wonders just _how_ close his father and John Laurens had been, if perhaps Alexander hadn't been completely truthful when describing John's importance to him.

"Why can't I remember?" Philip asks. "I remember the first life. But that's all. I don't have any memories of this one, of how I ended up in the hospital."

"We don't know," Alexander says carefully. "Maybe someone here can answer that question. I'm sure they have an expert on reincarnation here."

"You all seem to care very deeply about me," Philip says. "Even John, who I've never met, and, uh..." He looks at the girl.

"Frances."

"Frances here."

"Wait, what?" John says, jumping to his feet. He stares at Frances, clearly perplexed.

"I remembered," she mumbles.

John sighs, not sure what to make of this apparently new piece of information. "As in, Frances _Laurens?_ Daughter of Martha Manning Laurens and, uh, me?"

"Maybe." She looks at the ground, moving her feet from side to side.

John laughs, a little lightheaded. He takes the hand offered to him by Eliza in order to steady himself. "Wow."

"Did you ever meet her?" Alexander asks gently, and John shakes his head.

"Right after I married Martha, I joined the cause," John says, referring to the war efforts Philip has heard so much about. "Martha used to send me letters telling me how Frances was, even when I stopped replying. I died in South Carolina, and I never got to see her." He can't take his eyes off Frances, and Philip doesn't blame him.

Frances looks up at him. "Hi, dad." John hugs her almost immediately, and she buries her face in his shirt. Alexander and Eliza both watch, Alexander with pure adoration and Eliza with affection.

This is all very sweet, but Philip still has no idea who any of these people are to him in this life. He waits until the hug is finished before interjecting. "Are you still my parents in this life?" Eliza nods. "Who are John and Frances to me?"

John looks hurt. "I'm your dad." _Oh_.

He must look slightly unsure, because Alexander leaps in to clarify. "You have two dads and a mom."

"Which one are you married to, then?"

"John, because I got to marry Eliza last time," Alex says, "but—"

"You love them both?" Philip guesses.

"Yeah." Alexander sounds surprised but pleased. "How did you...?"

"Oh, I don't remember yet, but your body language and the way you look at them both makes it kind of obvious." Philip smirks.

"I'm your sister," pipes up Frances, who, until now, apart from the things she said to John, has stayed completely silent.

"That's what I thought," Philip says. "I don't remember, but I had a feeling." He offers a tentative grin, and she smiles back.

Someone knocks on the half-closed door. Alexander tells whoever it is to enter, and a young woman with a long brown ponytail pushes the door the rest of the way open.

"Hi, I'm here to check on Peter," she says. She must be a nurse or a doctor.

Peter? Is that Philip's name now?

The woman hurries over. She fiddles with the cord connecting the heart monitor to Philip. "How are you feeling?" she asks. Her name tag reads Melody.

"I feel fine," he says.

"That's good." She steps back, pleased with her work. "I'll see if I can get the doctor to let you go today, then. Is there anything else you need?"

"Yes, actually," Alexander says. "Do you have someone here who knows about reincarnation?"

"Oh, yes, Dr. Levi." Melody doesn't seem too surprised by the question, and Philip wonders how often they deal with medical complications as a result of reincarnation. "Would you like me to see if she's free?"

"Yes, thank you. There's a few questions I'd like to ask her regarding my son."

Melody nods. "I'll be back as soon as I can." She leaves, pulling the door half-shut behind her.

Melody comes back ten minutes later with another woman who looks about her age and who must be Dr. Levi.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Levi," the woman says, confirming Philip's assumption. "I was told you had some questions about reincarnation?"

"Yes." Alexander gets to his feet. He holds out a hand, and they shake hands. "You see, Dr. Levi, as it turns out, my entire family is comprised of reincarnations."

"Yes, that does tend to be how it works. We don't know why, but the patterns show that those who were close in their past lives tend to find each other again, or they're placed close to one another, perhaps by some mysterious greater force that takes care of the universe." She coughs. "Sorry, I find it such a fascinating topic. I didn't mean to ramble."

"That's alright," Alexander says.

"I'm the head of reincarnation here, which is probably at least partially due to the fact that I'm a reincarnation myself. What time period are you all from?"

"18th-19th century," Alexander says.

"Oh, how funny, me too. Now, what sort of questions did you have, sir?"

Philip likes Dr. Levi. She seems genuine.

"My son recently remembered his past life due to a traumatic experience similar to the way he died," Alexander says, and Dr. Levi nods. "He can't remember his current life, just the one before that."

"It happens," Dr. Levi says. "Especially when death-related trauma is involved." She approaches Philip, shining a small light in his ears, mouth, and eyes. She pats his shoulder. "Nothing seems out of the ordinary. I've dealt with a similar situation before. I think she was about your age," she says to Philip. "You should recover your memory in anywhere from a few days to a month, but here's my contact information just in case anything else comes up." She pulls a card out of the pocket of her doctor coat and hands it to Alexander.

"Thank you for coming so quickly," he says.

"I wasn't very busy today," she tells him. "It's no problem." Dr. Levi and Melody both leave.

* * *

  
  


Philip slowly starts to remember over the days that follow. Little things at first, facts, mostly, like his birthday or his favorite food. Then memories. He doesn't revert back to Peter, exactly, but as "Peter" and "Philip" begin to overlap, he finds it's easier to think of himself as both. He responds to either name (although he inherently leans toward Philip, since he'd had that name longer), and his parents get more comfortable calling each other their past names in front of him and Frances.

John absolutely refuses to call Frances anything else. He says Francesca is still a nice name, but he's clearly making up for lost time. He lights up whenever she talks, and hugs her far more often, and it puts everyone else in a far better mood too.

There's still a bullet hole in the wall. The bullet's been handed over to the police, but nobody's bothered to fix the wall. Philip doesn't know why. He doesn't like to look at it, and whenever he walks past, he averts his gaze.

Bad memories.

Eliza leaps back into their piano lessons with increased vigor, carefully adding harder pieces here and there as if testing how much Philip remembers. He knows more than he thinks he does, and she practically glows every time he nails a piece he shouldn't be able to play that well.

Not much changes, except they grow closer as a family. Eliza and Alexander tend to sit or stand microscopically closer to their son. Philip finds himself ever so slightly fascinated with comparing his dad to the stories of John Laurens. He doesn't act nearly as foolhardy or impulsively as the man Alexander had described so long ago—Philip still remembers—but he does seem the selfless hero type. Philip doesn't doubt that he'd give himself up to save any of them, and just because Philip didn't know John in his first life, that doesn't make him any less Philip's dad than Alexander is.

Philip has nightmares. He'll wake, panting, sometimes yelling, glancing around in a panic before he realizes where he is. This usually wakes up Frances, who always climbs into his bed to comfort him. She's a great sister, even if most of the time he can't prevent himself from comparing her to Angelica or Eliza Jr. She'll hold him and hush him until he stops crying, in a way that reminds him of the way their mother used to comfort them when they were little. It doesn't stop the nightmares, but it helps.

Every fourth of July, Philip sequesters himself in a huddle of blankets of his own design. It makes him feel safe—not to mention, muffles the loud bangs. None of his family minds that he doesn't like fireworks—they usually come join him at some point during the night. And they talk, as much a distraction as it is genuinely spending time with one another. So, he supposes, not everything that came out of the experience was bad. Just... a bit of a learning curve. But Philip loves life, and he loves his family. And he thanks the universe he got a second chance.

**Author's Note:**

> who do you think Melody and Dr. Levi are? i promise you know them. heres a hint: their full names are Melody Mandt and Miah Levi. maybe their initials will tell you something...?


End file.
